MILWAUKEE – Josh Barnett proved the superior and better-equipped fighter, but his stoppage win over Frank Mir was the lone disappointment at Saturday’s UFC 164 event.

That’s the assessment UFC President Dana White gave after the pay-per-view event, which took place at Milwaukee’s Bradley Center.

In less than two minutes, Barnett (33-6 MMA, 5-1 UFC) picked apart his fellow ex-UFC heavyweight champion with punches, knees and elbows from the clinch. The relentless attack ultimately concluded with a knee to Mir’s face, which dropped the big man and forced referee Rob Hinds to wave off the fight at the 1:56 mark of the round.

Mir (16-8 MMA, 14-8 UFC), though, immediately popped to his feet. While one could reasonably conclude Mir was finished when he crashed to the mat, his immediate recovery prompted Milwaukee fans to unleash a wave of boos.

“Obviously I thought that was a, uh, bad stoppage,” Mir told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com), clearly wanting to use any word but “bad” to describe the bout’s conclusion. “Sorry for my terminology, but my daughter is in the crowd.

“We’re fighters. If all the fights were stopped on any kind of flash shot or anything like that – actually, I took the knee, and I remember going, ‘S–t, I’m in a bad position.’ So that’s why I dropped my other knee from out under me, so I could drop to the ground to make sure I didn’t take a second one. I didn’t belly out. I didn’t flatten out. I actually tried to re-dig my underhook so that I could get a single(-leg takedown).”

Mir’s strategy backfired, though. That flop resembled a knockout, and the ref waved off the fight at the 1:56 mark of the round. While Mir, who’s now lost three consecutive bouts, had recovered from such shots to beat former foes such as Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Brock Lesnar – and though he pointed to Travis Browne‘s recent comeback victory over Alistair Overeem as another example – the ref was forced to act.

While he was thrilled with Saturday’s event, where hometown hero Anthony Pettis claimed the lightweight title from Benson Henderson, White said the Barnett-Mir ending remains the lone disappointment of the evening.

“I think that Josh Barnett has more tools than Frank does,” White said. “Josh’s standup is better. Submissions would have been fun to see. Frank Mir is a beast on the ground. But you know, Josh fought the fight that Josh needed to fight. He went in and did exactly what you need to do to beat Frank Mir. You get in there, you start hitting him. You close that distance, push him against the fence, hit him with elbows, rough him up. Frank Mir does not like that.

” … (But) if you had to pick one thing about that night that was disappointing, it was, could Frank Mir have taken a couple more shots? And that’s it. It was a good night.”

Barnett, meanwhile, returned for his first UFC fight and victory in 12 years. While it was a pivotal win for a fighter long on the outs with UFC officials, Barnett said he felt for Mir and understood his frustration.

After all, backstage before each of his bouts, Barnett said he instructs the referee to let the fight go on at all costs. He tells them he’d rather die than be the victim of an early stoppage.

Then again, early stoppage or not, Barnett felt he was going to defeat Mir.

“The potential was there for it to be (an) early (stoppage),” Barnett said. “I understood the ref just saw him drop and so he figured he was out. But I come from the old school. I remember watching guys getting mounted and the crap just pounded out of them, where they easily would have been stopped, and then watch the guy on top gas, get reversed and get finished.

” … I understand Frank’s frustration. But I feel like there was no getting out of that, personally. I feel it was the beginning of the end, but that’s what I’m supposed to feel.”

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